Managing Disk Quotas

Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Scripting Guide

Storing user data on central file servers offers a number of conveniences: the data is easy to locate, easy to transfer to another user, and easy to back up. However, centralized data storage does pose one problem: How do you prevent a single user from using up all the available disk space? As more and more users have gained access to the Internet, this problem has become even more severe, with many users downloading music and video files, expecting to store that data on the central file server. Disk quotas, introduced in the Windows 2000 operating systems, provide a way for administrators to monitor and control disk space use on servers.

With disk quotas, you can set limits on a user's disk space. If a user exceeds his or her quota, you can record this fact in the System event log, or you can set the system to deny the user the ability to store additional information. You can also customize quotas; this allows you to allocate larger amounts of disk space to users (such as graphic artists) who require additional storage.

Disk quotas also enable you to:

Track disk use on a per-user, per-volume basis, and thus better plan for storage allocation.